Can Students Be Paid to Excel?

Can Students Be Paid to Excel? By JENNIFER MEDINA The New York Times Published: March 5, 2014

The fourth graders squirmed in their seats, waiting for their prizes. In a few minutes, they would learn how much money they had earned for their scores on recent reading and math exams. Some would receive nearly $50 for acing the standardized tests, a small fortune for many at this school, P.S. 188 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

When the rewards were handed out, Jazmin Roman was eager to celebrate her $39.72. She whispered to her friend Abigail, “How much did you get?” Abigail mouthed a barely audible answer: $36.87. Edgar Berlanga pumped his fist in the air to celebrate his $34.50.

The children were unaware that their teacher, Ruth Lopez, also stood to gain financially from their achievement. If students show marked improvement on state tests during the school year, each teacher could receive a bonus of as much as $3,000.

School districts nationwide have seized on the idea that a key to improving schools is to pay for performance, whether through bonuses for teachers and principals, or rewards like cash prizes for students. New York City is in the forefront of this movement, with more than 200 schools experimenting with one incentive or another. In more than a dozen schools, students, teachers and principals are all eligible for extra money, based on students’ performance on standardized tests.

Each of these schools has become a test to measure whether, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg posits, tangible cash rewards can turn a school around. Can money make academic success cool for students disdainful of achievement? Will teachers pressure one another to do better to get a school wide bonus?

So far, the city has handed out more than $500,000 to 5,237 students in 58 schools as rewards for taking several tests on the schedule for this school year.

“I’m not saying I know this is going to fix everything,” said Roland G. Fryer, the Harvard economist who designed the student incentive program, “but I am saying it’s worth trying. What we need to try to do is start that spark.”

1 Critics of these efforts say that children should be inspired to learn for knowledge’s sake, not to earn money, and question whether prizes will ultimately lift achievement.

Some principals had no qualms about entering the student reward program. Virginia Connelly, the principal of Junior High School 123, has experimented with incentives for years, like rewarding good behavior, attendance and grades with play money that can be spent in the student store. “We’re in competition with the streets,” she said. “They can go out there and make $50 illegally. We have to do something to compete with that.”

Barbara Slatin, the principal of P.S. 188, however, said she was initially skeptical about paying students for doing well. Her students would surely welcome the money, but she worried about sending the wrong message. “I didn’t want to connect the notion of money with academic success,” she said. But soon she was persuaded to try. “We say we want to do whatever it takes, so if this is it, I am going to get on board,” she said.

In 1996, P.S. 188 was considered to be failing by the State Education Department, but it has improved dramatically over the last decade. In the fall, it received an A on the city’s report card. Still, fewer than 60 % of the students passed the state math test last year, and fewer than 40 % did so in reading. Teachers said that this year, they had noticed a better attitude among the students, which they attributed to the incentive program.

The students spoke excitedly about their plans for the money. Several boys said they were saving for video games. Abigail said she would use it to pay for “a car, a house and college,” apparently unaware that the roughly $100 she’s earned this school year might not stretch that far. Another little girl said she would use the money simply for food. When asked to elaborate, she answered quietly, “Spaghetti.” After all, the students all agreed that receiving money for doing well on a test was a good idea, saying it made school more exciting, and made doing well more socially acceptable. A 13-year-old student who has struggled in his classes at times said “This motivates us better. Everybody wants some money, and nobody wants to get left behind.”

Would it be better to get the money as college scholarships? Shouts of “No way!” echoed through the room. “We might not all go to college,” one student protested.

So is doing well in school cool? A few hands slowly inched up. But when their principal asked what could be done to make being the A-plus student seem as important as being the star basketball player, she was met with silence.

2 Still, nearly 90 % of the 200 schools offered the chance to join the teacher bonus program are participating, after a vote with each school’s chapter of the teachers’ union. At many schools, a decision has already been made to distribute any money they get across the board, and they are trying to include secretaries and other staff members as well.

No teachers were willing to say the rewards were unwelcome, but few said the potential windfall would push them to work harder. “It’s better than a slap in the face,” said Ms. Lopez, who has taught for more than a decade. “But honestly, I don’t think about it. We’re here every day working and pushing; that’s what we’ve been doing for years. We don’t come into this for the money, and most of us don’t leave it because of the money.”

“I tell my students all the time that I can sit in the back and hand them worksheets and get the same amount of money as I do if I stand in front of the class working with high energy the entire time,” said Christina Varghese, a lead math teacher, who is in her 10th year of teaching. “What’s the motivation there? At least this gives us something to work toward.”